The Burden of Words
by LateRiser
Summary: Another follow-on to "His Sacrifice." There was this girl who was kind of a big part of Logan's life at one time. How she's doing?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: Read "His Sacrifice" by Jistone or this story won't make sense.

There was this girl who was kind of a big part of Logan's life at one time. How she's doing?

In looking into the matter, I discovered that the U.S. Marine Corps does not have medics; rather, Navy corpsmen provide first aid in the field. I thought about fixing the references to "Marine medic" in this story, but there are references to it in the other two stories so I've let them stand. I suppose you could say that the three stories take place in an alternate universe where there _are_ Marine medics — and BTR, for that matter.

"The Hole in My Heart" is a related sequel to "His Sacrifice"; it sheds light on Kendall. However, you don't have to read it to understand this story (or vice-versa). It's arguably improper to be making multiple (unauthorized) sequels to somebody else's story, but "His Sacrifice" made a very big impression on me. I only hope Jistone doesn't mind too much.

Rated T for language.

DISCLAIMER: Last I checked, I had no ownership interest in Big Time Rush, either the band or the TV series. If I'm wrong, somebody tell me.

* * *

It all seemed to be breaking her way: she was getting auditions, booking small parts here and there, and by virtue of her drive and talent she had convinced her father to withdraw his threat to spirit her away at the first sign her career had hit the doldrums. And in between all her hard work, she was able to spend quite a bit of time in Logan's company. Even after they had formally broken up as a couple, neither of them ever quite cut the ties that linked them.

This idyllic time lasted almost four years, coinciding with Big Time Rush's existence. When the boys, now young men, announced they were going their separate ways, she dared to hope that perhaps Logan might be induced to stay in southern California. There were worse places to attend college and medical school than UCLA, she said over dinner one night.

That was the cue for him to drop his bombshell.

"Camille, I — I can't. I'm not going to college. Not yet, anyway."

She stared at him as if he had sprouted horns. "Not going to college? _You_? Nothing's more important to you!" Then, his squirming, stuttering discomfort rendering him mute, she continued. "Unless you're going to travel? Is that it?"

Even as she brightened at the thought, it occurred to her that he had had plenty of opportunities to see the world while performing with BTR. In fact, the grueling pace of touring had led to the grousing among the longtime friends that had been her first hint the band was not long for the world.

Even if she had not realized her mistake, Logan's face would have told her she was way off. He stared down at the table, beyond the point of nervous stuttering; in such acute distress, in fact, as she had never seen him.

"Oh my God, Logan, what's wrong? Are you sick?" Her heartbeat sped up and she felt her stomach drop as the thought occurred to her that he might be seriously, perhaps even terminally, ill. She could imagine no other reason he would be so unwilling to speak his mind to her. The two had shared much in the course of their relationship and were not in the habit of keeping secrets from each other.

He looked up, his face still wearing the same pained, anxious expression. "No. No, I'm not sick." He sighed deeply, as if trying to draw strength from the air. Then in a low voice, looking straight into her eyes, he said, "I'm going to join the Marines, to be a medic."

Now it was Camille who couldn't speak and Logan who took advantage of that fact. "I didn't know how to tell you, because I knew you'd worry and you'd try to talk me out of it. I guess I was hoping I wouldn't have to tell you at all, that I could just enjoy the rest of my time here without this hanging over us. I ..." His voice faltered as her expression changed from bewilderment to verging on a flood of tears. He quickly seized her hands in his own, his expression mirroring hers as if he finally realized how much pain he was causing her.

They remained like that for a full minute before Camille sniffed, pulled her hands away and said in a shaky voice, "Can we ... can we go somewhere more private?"

They drove from the restaurant to the beach to watch the waves in the dim moonlight. To watch, and to speak. Like the waves, their conversation was choppy, sometimes violent; receding and returning, covering the same ground again and again, yet never precisely in the same way; monotonous, yet mesmerizing.

"The _military_? _Why_?"

"I — I just have to. It's the right place for me. I can help there."

"You can help _here_. There are a lot more people in need right _here_!"

"Yeah — but it's _not_ where I belong. I can't explain it — I just know being a medic is _right_. This isn't something I decided over dinner. I've been thinking about it for a while. It's — I dunno, it's like a _calling_. You know how some guys know they should be a priest? That's what it's like for me."

"Then why can't you become a _priest_?"

And so it went, bitter yet tender: she, her deep love darkened by the unavoidable specter of the harm she could envision befalling him, reaching new heights of manic fury; he, quailing under her assault, nevertheless stubbornly holding his ground. She had never known him to be so determined about anything. She began to dread she wouldn't be able to change his mind, for the first time ever.

After what seemed like hours, Logan abruptly slammed his fists on the steering wheel. The uncharacteristic physical violence shocked her into silence. The look in his eyes transfixed her as he spoke. "Obviously I can't make you understand. I get everything you've said — and I know how much you care. But damn it, _you_ don't get how important this is to _me_." He started the car and began defrosting the windows: they had fogged up with their talking (and shouting). "We're getting nowhere, and I'm exhausted. That's it. I'm done arguing."

"_What_? You can't just stop arguing! We are _so_ not done with this, Logan Mitchell!"

His only reply was to roll down the door windows to wipe off the mist.

"_Talk_ to me!"

He stared out his open window, avoiding her gaze.

She kept waiting for him to say something, _anything_. When he put the car in gear and started driving, she maintained her stony, angry expression, but inside she was conflicted. Still furious that he had unilaterally ended their argument — and that she had let him get away with it — she also found herself gnawed by fear: fear that she had pushed him too far, fear that this truly was their final breakup, and fear for him, for his safety and even his life.

She spent the entire ride back to her apartment — she had moved out of the Palm Woods only a month before — wrestling with her divergent emotions. She wasn't any closer to resolving them by the time the car pulled up to her building.

Usually Logan parked and escorted her upstairs. Tonight, though, he idled before the front door, making no move to leave the car. The message was clear — and abruptly, so were her feelings.

"Fine. We're _done_." Her voice was as cold as ice. "Go, join the Marines. Follow your 'calling,'" she sneered. "You might as well join the priesthood while you're at it, because you will never find a woman as willing to put up with you as I was. Nobody else is that stupid." She got out of the car, but before slamming the door shut leaned in to say, "And if you die in some godforsaken desert while you're playing soldier, I swear, I will _not_ mourn for you."

She stormed into her building without looking back at the car as it pulled away.

* * *

**A/N**: This was setup. There will be payoff. But you knew that, because you've already read "His Sacrifice," yes?


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**: Like I said at the end of chapter 1, that was setup; this is payoff. James makes a brief but eventful couple of appearances in this chapter. Arguably, in fact, he is the prime mover here, though it's very much Camille who is moved and she doesn't much care for the motion.

If you read "The Hole in My Heart" and disliked the dialogue-to-exposition ratio, you're in luck because this chapter reverses the ratio almost perfectly.

DISCLAIMER: Last I checked, I had no ownership interest in Big Time Rush, either the band or the TV series. If I'm wrong, somebody tell me.

* * *

After almost eighteen months of steadily — all too steadily — waiting on tables at the Starlight Diner, Camille was a seasoned waitress, well-liked by regulars and generally able to charm first-timers into leaving tips larger than they had intended. She was also senior enough to be able to pick her shifts and most of her preferred holidays. As a waitress, she was doing pretty well.

Too bad she still yearned to be an actress.

Waiting tables paid her rent and kept her in makeup, not to mention food and a limited amount of clothing, but she had never given up on her dream of stardom. That dream had kept her going even after she had elected to make her own way in Hollywood. Her father's acquiescence to her living by herself had come with a condition: she would have to support herself. She had known he would impose that condition, so she hadn't bothered even to broach the matter until she and Logan had gone over the numbers to figure out how she could make ends meet. Only when the two had satisfied themselves that she could pull it off had she brought the subject up with her father. It had been a good idea to plan ahead: Logan's spreadsheet, not Camille's imploring looks, had been the key to parental consent.

That had been the last major triumph of their relationship. Only a couple of months later, they had parted forever.

She had had little time to indulge in post-breakup pity, though, because she could not afford to show up at auditions red-eyed and puffy-faced from crying all night long. In any case, starting on the night of their final fight, she had told herself that she was definitely and finally through with him. She had gone further than any reasonable person could have been expected to go to understand him. _She_ had been willing to talk the matter out; _he_ had been the one who, like a petulant child, had refused to speak. The more she had thought about it, the clearer it had been that he had never intended to consult her about his decision. He had simply _informed_ her, as if she hadn't been entitled to weigh in, as if she had had no _right_ to have an opinion, as if his choice affected only _him_ and not her. He had even _admitted_ that he had hoped not to have to tell her at all!

In an incredibly short time, the Logan Mitchell who had once been her soulmate stood revealed to her in his true guise as a self-absorbed, heartless creep of the first order.

_Obviously_ he had stopped thinking of them as having a real relationship some time ago. Therefore _he_ had as good as broken up with _her_ before that fateful dinner. That being the case, even though she had been the one to say "we're done," _he_ had actually done the deed long before. How long before, she wondered. All the times Logan had fallen short of her expectations paraded before her mind's eye. It had been so easy and so tempting to attribute them to his shyness, but he had been anything but shy in that last fight. She had misread him, badly, from the beginning. He had never been shy: it had all been an act. He had come off as inconsiderate not because he was clueless about relationships but because he was a world-class _jerk_. That made a lot of sense. He hadn't just strung her along at that first party, when he had been making time with Mercedes Griffin: he had strung her along for the _entire time_ they'd known each other.

What a colossal _fool_ she had made of herself.

As she tried to cope with the trivial concerns of daily life, she found that this reinterpretation of Logan gave her strength. It turned her fear, doubt and heartbreak into simmering anger. For a time she found herself booking more parts than usual that fell into a category one casting director had characterized, crudely but accurately, as "the seething bitch." She took grim solace in having been able to turn her huge mistake into a boost for her career.

Eventually her agent's warnings that she was typecasting herself into a corner convinced her to let go of the anger, or at least most of it. Instead, she concentrated on putting Logan out of her mind altogether. She threw out everything that reminded her of him. She purged her computer of all his emails and deleted his number from her phone. And she dropped most of her circle of friends from the Palm Woods, because everything about the place was inextricably associated with _him_.

She had always placed her career first, but for the first time in several years she really buckled down and pursued it with an intensity that her few remaining friends found unnerving. Her singlemindedness proved to be problematic. When she consciously started avoiding angry-girl roles, fewer of her auditions succeeded. She became more desperate to prove herself, and it started to show in her performing. Casting directors mentally began putting her into the too-anxious-to-succeed category, and even parts for which a year before she would have been in hot contention suddenly were much harder to land.

The slump in her acting also negatively affected her regular work. She had always imagined waiting tables to be a throwaway job, and that was how she treated her first two stints at different eateries. The first time one of her increasingly rare callbacks conflicted with one of her work shifts, she quit; unfortunately, there was no second callback and in the down economy she had had to scramble to find another waitressing gig. She had been more cautious about prematurely ending that one, but after moving heaven and earth to make time for another series of callbacks without quitting her day job, she had landed a small role in a series pilot and dropped her apron again. The pilot wasn't picked up, and though she had made a little money from it, it had barely sufficed to keep her head above water before she found the opening at the Starlight. Her unexpectedly close encounters with destitution had made her much less inclined to pursue her dream with the same reckless abandon she had had before, and she suspected she was missing out on opportunities as a result. She couldn't figure out how to square the circle, though, and as time passed it became easier not to worry about scrambling so hard.

Occasionally she wondered why, barely out of her teens, she lacked the same drive that other aspiring performers had. She could think of several former Palm Woods denizens who were struggling as hard to live on their own as she was, but they still rose to the challenges with vigor and enthusiasm, not worrying overmuch about landing more throwaway jobs and chasing down every audition they could. She put it down to having had more hard knocks than they had. Most of the time she convinced herself, but every once in a while, late at night, the suspicion arose within her that it wasn't her circumstances, but rather something in herself, that was really to blame. Even so, she was too tired to care most of the time. It was as if her furious post-breakup burst of activity had drained most of her energy, and now all she could do was to maintain her life at a low simmer. It should have bothered her, but she was too spent to care.

With the dearth of acting opportunities, she had no reason not to devote her remaining energies to working hard and steadily at the Starlight, harder and more steadily than she ever had intended. It had paid off: she was able to clear her bills and even put aside a little each month. She was better off than a lot of her fellow Starlight workers, and she knew it.

Still, she didn't want to be there. She wanted to be acting. Yet every day that she found herself too exhausted from work to prepare for auditions put her dream further out of reach. That ugly, seemingly inescapable fact initially was like a body blow to her self-esteem, but with repetition, the pain subsided to become a barely noticeable, ever-present, thudding ache.

The night her ringing cell phone shattered her dreamless, exhausted sleep, she had initially thought it was her alarm summoning her to another work day. When, after the second ring, she had figured out it was a phone call, she peered at the clock: 12:47. She reached for the phone to see who could possibly be calling at that hour.

James.

James initially had been the one she had worked hardest to exclude from her life: no one still in California reminded her more strongly of Logan. Initially she had been concerned he would notice her cold shoulder and start asking questions she had no desire to answer. Then she reasoned that Logan must have told his best friends about the breakup, so it was unlikely they would seek her out. Yet she had run into James by accident a couple of times: he had greeted her warmly and showed no sign that he felt awkward in her presence, nor that he had felt slighted by her. She put it down to his need to avoid public spats that could endanger his budding career as a solo singer. In her darker moments, she thought he might have conspired with Logan to pretend nothing had happened in order to make _her_ feel worse. She didn't think he was a good enough actor to pull off such a performance, though.

Why on earth would _James_ be calling her, and at this hour?

It wasn't until the fourth ring that she decided to pick up. "James?"

"Uh, yeah, hi, Camille. I know it's late —"

"Yeah, it's almost one." She had meant to sound more annoyed, but she couldn't muster the energy. Then she noticed there had been a tremble in his voice that was quite unlike his usual confident smoothness. Something was troubling him. "You sound ... different. How come?"

There was a barely perceptible delay before he responded. "Camille, I'm really sorry to wake you, but — something's happened and you need to know." He had made a manful effort to suppress the tremble, but she could still hear its faint presence. "It's — it's about Logan."

In that instant, her world came crashing down around her. She _knew_ without being told that Logan was dead. Her final words to him rang out harshly in her memory. All her anger, all her fear, all her heartbreak came thundering back, but overwhelmed by a smothering, pervasive numbness born of shock. Her brain all but shut down, paralyzed. She couldn't cry. She could barely breathe.

"Camille?"

She had forgotten she was still on the phone. Her reply was automatic, detached from her welter of thoughts and emotions. "Yeah?"

"Camille, Logan — he was killed in Afghanistan. Last night."

She wondered why he had repeated himself. Then her brain processed the fact that he had actually _just_ passed along the critical information. It had only _felt_ like a rehash to her.

"Ca- — Camille?"

She couldn't think clearly and didn't know what to say. Actually, she didn't want to say anything at all, not in her current state. Wasn't there a formula, a convention she could follow?

Her brain, slowly reasserting itself, dredged up a scene from the failed series pilot. She had been the protagonist's best friend, who had had to console her on her fiance's death in a car accident. She had merely to substitute "James" for "Christine" and "Logan" for "Alex."

"I — I'm sorry, James. I'm really, really sorry to hear that. Logan ... I'll miss him."

Even while shooting the scene, she had marveled at the poor quality of the writing: it utterly failed to sound anything like what a best friend would say at such a time. At the moment, though, it was all that she could think of to cover her mental breakdown.

Her overriding concern was to end the conversation. She dredged up conventional pieties. "You should get some sleep if you can. Call me if I can do anything for you. Good night." And before he could object, she hung up.

Good Lord, _why_ had she invited him to call her back? The last thing she wanted was to have to discuss this further. She didn't even want to _think_ about it.

The last, the _very very last_ thing she had said to Logan was that she wouldn't mourn for him if he died. She had been incredibly angry and hurt at the time. Yet even then a small part of her had wanted to take the words back. It had been her suffocating fear that he might die that had prompted the fight, after all, and that fear had arisen from her love for him. That love had never disappeared: she had only buried it under layers of bitterness that had grown like scar tissue over her emotional wounds. With his death, she knew she would never have the chance to make things right with him. That knowledge violently ripped away the bitterness, leaving the old wounds newly exposed and bleeding. She _hurt_.

All at once, she started crying. Wailing, in fact.

She awoke as dawn filtered into her bedroom. The pillow was wet. After a moment she remembered that she had buried her face in it while sobbing in the middle of the night. Then she remembered why she had been sobbing, and the grief returned in a tidal surge, drowning her mind yet again.

A noise: her alarm clock. How long had it been sounding? A glance told her she had slept ten minutes past her usual time. She groaned, throwing back the covers and swinging her legs out of bed by reflex. But she made no further move. She felt like she was made of lead, and she wasn't sure she remembered how to walk. After a little while in this attitude, she realized she could not face work. She reached for her phone and dialed her boss.

"Skip? Hi, it's Camille. ... No, no, everything's not all right. I — my old boyfriend — he was killed. ... Yeah, he was technically my ex, but — but I wasn't really over him. ... No, I can't. I'm really sorry, but I'm just not up — ... Thanks, Skip. I — I'll try to be back tomorrow. ... Yeah, I know you can't; that's why I said I'll be back. ... Okay. ... Yeah, thanks. 'Bye."

After the call she was still fatigued, but she knew she wouldn't go back to sleep. She started the coffee brewing and went to take a shower.

An hour later she had finished the shower and the coffee. The day stretched before her, but she was at a loss to know what to do with it. She couldn't face seeing anyone: she knew that the slightest effort to put on a brave front would send her into another paroxysm of tears. So she sat on her couch, staring at nothing, doing her best to think of nothing.

After a while she got up and shambled through the small apartment, looking for something, anything, that she had shared with him. She had been too thorough, though, in her furious scouring over a year before. Not a trace remained that she had ever known Logan. She had only her memories. But the ones that came to the fore were of that bitter fight; they tore at her like savage dogs. As she had in the dark watches of the night, she wept until she was too exhausted to stay awake.

Again, it was her phone that awakened her. Cursing, she retrieved it from her bedroom. Again, it was James. She sighed, wondering if she should let it go to voicemail: answering it last night, after all, had done her no good.

She picked it up.

She remained silent as he offered to arrange her flight to Minnesota for the funeral, but inwardly she groaned. She should have expected this.

Part of her wanted to go. Another part, though, couldn't face the ordeal. She would break down, she knew, and probably not just at the service. That didn't bother her. What she wouldn't be able to endure were the attempts to comfort her. She would never be able to explain why she didn't deserve those efforts; why, indeed, those efforts would make her feel even _worse_, because they would reinforce the heinousness of the way she had treated Logan. She deserved to feel all the pain, all the misery, all the grief; she deserved to cry until all the water had been wrung from her body.

It dawned on her that James was waiting for her answer. Time for another quick decision.

"I can't, I'm sorry."

He hadn't been expecting that: he was genuinely stunned. "Wh- — you can't? You can't attend the funeral?"

"No, I can't." She couldn't bring herself to tell him the truth. "I — there's just too much going on here: I have too many commitments."

"I — I don't understand. At _all_." The outrage in his voice pierced her like a knife. "You act like Logan's funeral is this huge _inconvenience_!"

Suddenly it was one in the morning all over again: again grief threatened to overwhelm her, again her mind was numbed, and again, she needed to end the call immediately. "I'm sorry, James, I can't have this conversation."

She knew as she hung up that she had burnt her last bridge to Logan. Whatever she would suffer as a result of how she had treated him, she would have to endure alone.

She deserved nothing less.

* * *

**A/N**: One more chapter to go. It would be wrong to leave Camille like this ... wouldn't it?


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**: Final chapter, in which I more or less put various people out of their misery. Oh relax, the worst has already happened.

I'd like to thank **SyFyDiva** for alerting me to a posting screwup with respect to Chapter 2: I had made it a new story rather than a new chapter because, well, this was my first multichapter story and I was a clueless newbie. That new story has since been deleted (I hope) and Chapter 2 posted where it belongs.

Rated T for language.

DISCLAIMER: Last I checked, I had no ownership interest in Big Time Rush, either the band or the TV series. If I'm wrong, somebody tell me.

* * *

She headed right back to work the next day, as she had promised. And except for the first few hours of her first day back, when she was still reacquainting herself with daily life, not a soul noticed that she had anything on her mind. It was a testament to her acting skills that by the time her first break was over, she had figured out how to don a mask of friendly professionalism the moment she stepped through the doors, a mask she didn't drop until well outside of them at the end of her shift. The part of her that still cared about life wished that any number of casting directors could have seen her performance over the several weeks following that last call with James.

Much the greater part of her mind, though, was sunk in abject misery and guilt.

The acute, unendurably painful phase had lasted only until bedtime that first day, when she had crawled into bed half hoping she wouldn't wake up again. She spent much of that night in a fitful doze and when the alarm went off she almost felt she would have been better off not sleeping at all. Only the reality that her landlord would not count mourning as a suitable replacement for the rent prodded her into starting her daily routine.

Those first few hours at work had been tough. The early morning crowd consisted mostly of regulars who had come to expect her cheery insouciance, and they quickly noticed her listless attitude. Her boss had said nothing about why she had been absent the previous day, so some assumed she had been sick while others thought some emergency had come up. Most of them asked why she looked down, or as one of them put it, "like a car hit your dog." She had been hard pressed to evade their inquiries, and while most got the hint and stopped probing, a few only ended their interrogations because their own work days beckoned.

It was during her first break that she came to a surprising realization: she didn't mind being at work. In fact, she rather preferred it to the alternative, all things considered. Work took her outside of herself, which was an inestimable comfort in those dark days. She was under no illusion that work was going to make her truly cheerful anytime soon, but she would take any opportunity that came along to feel less miserable. So while her charming demeanor after that break and for weeks afterward was a mask, it wasn't as shallow as the term implies. A part of her genuinely took solace from doing her job well, and that included making her customers comfortable and welcome.

So her work days were more or less bearable. Her days off were more fraught. She needed them, of course, to do all the things outside work that needed doing, and in any case her boss wasn't about to pay her overtime if he could help it so there was no question of begging extra shifts. But the things one does when not working don't generally take one out of oneself: quite the contrary, they give one a good deal of time to think. That was something she didn't need.

After the first week, her grief diminished somewhat to a throbbing ache in the background: it was always there but it didn't dominate her awareness. Her guilt, too, abated, but not as sharply. We can mourn others for a time, but can punish ourselves forever.

Her days and weeks had fallen into a predictable rhythm again when one day she arrived home after work to find someone standing outside her apartment door. At first she was ready to call for the cops, but as she looked more closely she recognized his profile and stopped dead in her tracks.

Carlos.

She was so taken aback that for once, he got in the first word. "Hey — hey, Camille. Long time no see." He smiled awkwardly, his hands in his jeans pockets.

"Carlos, what — what are you doing here?"

"Uh, well, I had some vacation time coming to me, and I kind of missed the beach, so ..." He shrugged. It was clear he hadn't put much thought into his lie.

She suspected she knew the real reason he was here, and she wasn't going to make this conversation easy for him. "Oh? Well, you realize I'm twenty miles from the nearest beach. You're a little out of your way."

He rolled his eyes in defeat: he was by far the least adept of the four best friends at maintaining a facade. She'd get the truth out of him now.

"Okay, that was a lame excuse —"

"Yes, very lame."

"— but I thought maybe it'd be easier to talk if, um, I started on a, uh, pleasant note —"

"Really? A lie is pleasant to you?"

"Could you — could you let me finish?"

"Sorry. Go ahead."

"I came here because, well, we're kind of worried about you. Kendall, James and me."

"You — you're _worried_ about me?" She was genuinely surprised.

"Well, _yeah_. I mean, we didn't see you at Logan's funeral and you kind of blew Ja-" He stopped abruptly. At the word "funeral," Camille found her composed front collapsing. She thought she had gotten over the worst of her sorrow, but it took only the barest reminder of Logan's death to turn her back into a helpless blob. The tears started flowing copiously and freely.

Distressed, Carlos came over to her and gingerly took her shoulders, muttering, "Nononono, Camille, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry, shh, shh..." After a moment he stopped keeping his distance and folded her to his chest, letting her tears soak into his shirt and trying his best to soothe her.

A part of her was ashamed of showing her weakness in public. But mostly she was grateful for meaningful human contact, especially with someone who understood her grief. She and Carlos had never been especially close, but now she clung to him like a life preserver — and indeed, he might have been just that for her, at that moment in her life.

She had mourned by herself. She hadn't known she needed to mourn with others. She hadn't known she needed others to share her grief with, as badly as she did. Or perhaps she simply hadn't known those others were even there for her. She certainly hadn't done anything to deserve them.

At length she got enough control of herself to let go of Carlos and speak again. "I — I'm sorry about that —"

"Don't be! It's okay!"

She smiled. "It's sweet of you to say that. But let's go inside before the neighbors ask questions." She rummaged in her purse, dug out her keys and led them into the apartment. Tossing her belongings onto a table, she went straight to the kitchen. "Make yourself at home in the living room. Do you want anything to drink? I don't have much — diet soda, water ... well, that's it, actually."

"Uh, some water would be great, thanks."

She brought the glasses into the living room and sat down on the sofa next to him. After drinking deeply, as much to give herself time to pull herself together as to quench her thirst, she put down the glass and looked up at her guest. "I — I don't want you to think that I cry at all hours of the day or at the drop of a hat."

"Hey, it's okay, I don't care —"

"No, really, I know that's what you guys must be thinking if you're _worried_ about me. I mean, anybody who could be worried about me after the way I treated James on the phone must think I'm a complete basket case."

"No, hang on, Camille, that's not what —"

"It's _okay_, Carlos, you don't have to worry about hurting my feelings. To tell the truth, I guess I _am_ a complete basket case. I just did a great job of hiding it 'til now. Even from myself." She looked away, down at the table, suddenly lost in her own thoughts.

Carlos hesitated before speaking again. "Camille ... can I ask you something?"

She sniffled before replying. "Sure."

"Did you break up with Logan? Before he died?"

Only someone as guileless as Carlos could have so innocently and swiftly cut to the chase. She didn't reply for several long seconds, and Carlos misinterpreted her silence. "I'm sorry, you don't have to tell —"

"No, it's not that I don't want to tell you. I'm just wondering how much of it you really want to know." She grimaced. "Yeah. Yeah, we broke up before he left for basic training. It ... it wasn't pretty." She was going to stop there but Carlos had a look on his face that told her he wouldn't judge her, or at least, he would be willing to hear her out completely. She decided to trust her instincts. "I was a real bitch to him. I was so mad, I couldn't see straight. All I could see was that something like ... what happened, would happen! I was so scared, and I was so angry that he couldn't see how scared I was, or the risks he was taking!" She stopped to cry anew; Carlos reached over to embrace her again but she pushed him back gently.

"No, don't do that. Not 'til you hear everything.

"I was willing to talk — okay, I was willing to argue — with him all night. But he, he just _stopped_. He stopped talking. He shut down and shut up. And ... and that told me he — he was done with me. He chose the Marines over me. And — and I wasn't going to stand there and be treated like an old rag, so ... I broke up with him. I told him we were done. But I didn't stop there." She had to calm herself to say the next words. "I told him, if he died ... I wouldn't mourn for him."

Carlos didn't say anything immediately. She couldn't bear to look at him, fearing he would have lost that open, non-judgmental expression that had prompted her to unburden herself for the first time. Even if he somehow had found it within himself to forgive her, she doubted he would be able to hide his repugnance for how she had treated one of his best friends.

"Are you okay?"

_Him_ asking after _her_ welfare was the last thing she expected. Now she did look him in the face again and found that his expression had indeed changed. It remained friendly, but tinged with sadness. Sadness she could understand, but not friendliness. "Carlos, did you hear what I said? I told Logan to his face that _I didn't care if he died_!"

"I heard."

"Then why aren't you screaming at me? It was a _horrible_ thing to say! And it was the _last_ thing I _ever_ said to him! You should hate me! _I_ hate me!"

"Whoa, whoa, Camille. Stop. Calm down." He waited until her breathing returned to normal. "First, you should know something: James and I ... kind of already know what happened. At least, we know how Logan saw things."

"How?"

"I'll get to that. We wanted to talk to you because we didn't know if Logan knew as much as he thought. But, um, James was a little too freaked out to —"

"I know. I'd have been freaked out too. I mean, if I'd been in his shoes. So he sent for you all the way from Minnesota, so you could do the dirty work of approaching crazy Camille?" She suddenly remembered that Carlos and Kendall hadn't lived in California for a couple of years.

"James asked us to come out, but not to talk to you. At least, not only because of that. But we can talk about that later. Something we don't get is, why _did_ you act like that with James? I can see you didn't hate Logan, or at least you don't now. Did — were you still pissed at him when James told you he had died?"

Even now, Carlos didn't understand. "No. No, not at all. Right up to when James told me, maybe, but not afterwards." She sighed. "But God, Carlos, I felt so _guilty_. It was bad enough breaking up with him just before he left. I made it a million times worse saying I didn't care if he died!"

"Okay, I get that you felt guilty, but ... well, I guess I can see why you didn't want to tell James what happened. Still, why didn't you want to come to the funeral? You wouldn't have had to tell us anything."

"Come to the _funeral_?" she replied exasperatedly. "Carlos, I couldn't even keep up a phone conversation with James. Do you think I could have faced you guys in person without wanting to _die_?"

That stopped him cold. Evidently the thought hadn't occurred to him.

"I was so ashamed of how I'd treated Logan, I couldn't face any of you. Even now, when I saw you, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if you would hate me for how I treated James, or Logan, or maybe both. I didn't want to find out. If you hadn't caught me by surprise, I might have made it so we never saw each other."

He didn't respond immediately, and she was talked out for the moment. Finally he broke the silence. "Wow. I'm — I'm so, so sorry, Camille. We didn't have any idea ..."

"It's okay. No reason you should have."

"Yeah, we should have. We owed it to you, and to Logan. We should have done a better job of staying in touch. I mean, especially since we didn't know you guys had broken up until pretty recently."

"You didn't?"

"No."

"Then how did you find out? Did Logan suddenly feel the need to tell you guys while he was in Afghanistan?"

"Not ... exactly. I mean, he sort of did, but not in person. He ... kind of left word for us." Carlos pulled out an envelope, somewhat the worse for having been crammed into his back pocket. "And ... for you." He handed the envelope to her. "Sorry, it got a little crushed in my pocket."

Of all the things Camille had expected, a letter from Logan was nowhere on the list. She had never thought to hear from him again. She took the envelope mechanically and stared at the familiar handwritten scrawl of "Camille" on its face, but made no move to open it.

Carlos got to his feet and headed for the door. "I'll let you read it in private."

"Um ... could you maybe stay with me instead?" To his confused look she explained, "I don't know what he says in here. I might want a friend to help me get through it."

"Oh. Um, okay. If you want. But, uh, I don't think Logan meant for anybody else to know what he said ..."

"I'm not going to read it out loud, silly. I'd just like the company, if you have time."

"Oh, sure," he said, sounding more relieved than she expected. Then his face took on that awkward look again. "But, um, I didn't exactly drive myself here. James is waiting in the car ..."

For the first time in their conversation, Camille felt a genuine sense of amusement. "Too scared to face me?"

"Kind of."

"Bring him up."

"Really?"

"Of course. Were you just going to leave him sitting there?"

"Actually, I was. Well, I would have told him I needed to stay a little longer, then come back up."

"Well now you can both come back up. Tell him I won't bite."

A couple of minutes later, Carlos reentered the apartment, followed by a warier-than-usual James. Still a bit chagrined by how she had treated him over the phone, Camille tried to set him at his ease by joking. "Come on, James. Are you telling me you _and_ Carlos couldn't handle one psycho girl if you had to?"

"You could be armed." It wasn't clear how much, or even whether, he was joking.

"Oh, relax, James. Carlos and I already cleared the air. And I'm sorry I was such a weirdo on the phone. You were the victim of circumstance, and I was too chicken to explain afterwards. Happy now?"

"Mm ... okay," he replied, still wary but allowing Carlos to shove him onto the sofa.

She changed the subject abruptly. "Hey, so why are you out here, Carlos? And where's Kendall?"

"I'm here because James _missed_ me," Carlos taunted. Before he could go on, James broke in. "I asked them both to fly out here — and I'm putting them both up, _Carlos-who-could-be-sleeping-on-the-street-tonight_ — because I had a brainstorm. I wanted the three of us to write and perform a song about Logan for my next album. I've even lined up Gustavo to produce." Abruptly James stopped grinning. "Kendall was supposed to fly out today with Carlos but he begged off 'til tomorrow. He said he had a family thing."

"Why don't you sound like you believe him?"

"I'm worried about him."

"We're both worried about him," Carlos amended.

"He went into big-brother-slash-man-of-the-house mode right after I arrived in Minnesota. He was taking care of everybody, even Logan's mom. Carlos and I tried to help, but we could only do so much. And he never let himself relax, even when it was just us. He has a lot bottled up inside. He has to let it out. I don't want him doing anything crazy, that's all."

"Oh my God, you guys shouldn't even be here, you should be looking after Kendall!"

James rolled his eyes. "Camille, don't you think we'd be doing that if we could?"

Carlos nodded in agreement. "Kendall doesn't like it when people fuss over him. The only one he lets fuss is his mom."

"I called her right after he hung up to check out his story. She didn't have any special family plans, but we agreed it was time _somebody_ talked to him, to get him to come clean about whatever's going on inside. Later she called me back and said _he_ had asked to have dinner with her and Katie tonight. I guess he didn't want to feel like he had completely lied to me."

"Between Katie and Mama Knight, Kendall will crack," Carlos opined.

"I just hope he doesn't find out I put Mama Knight up to it or when he gets here he'll crack _me_."

Camille had been as impressed by how well the two had seamlessly told their story as by how well they knew Kendall. "Wow. You guys really do know each other too well."

James smiled faintly. "Yeah, we do. And you've stalled long enough." He pointed to the envelope she hadn't let go of since Carlos had given it to her.

She was too surprised by how easily James had seen through her to protest. She merely reached for the letter opener and sliced open the top, extracting several sheets of paper covered in Logan's handwriting.

"Dear Camille,

"I tried to make this a video, but I couldn't make all the arrangements in time. Maybe it's better this way: I think better when I write and I don't space out like when I stare into a camera. Maybe it'll be better for you not to have to see my face, too, I don't know.

"Anyway, I hope you never have to read this, but I have to plan for every contingency, like not making it back home to talk to you in person.

"Which is kind of ironic if you think about it, since that possibility is exactly what torpedoed our relationship. I imagine you're not much interested in irony, though. Not on that subject, anyway. And I guess I can't blame you. I wouldn't be either, if I were in your shoes.

"I don't know why it took me so long to put myself in your shoes. I guess I was so sure that I had made the right decision, it never occurred to me anybody could think otherwise. I'm not normally that blind, am I? Even about us, where I admit I have been pretty shortsighted in the past?

"Anyway, I didn't get it, and that's really where it all came apart. I _said_ I understood you, but honestly, I didn't. I mean, of course I knew I could be hurt, but I was so filled with the desire to serve, I didn't think it would _really_ happen. I know that sounds crazy, especially for me. Yet that's what I was thinking. At least, I think so.

"It doesn't matter why I was an idiot anyway. What matters is that I _was_ an idiot, and I was so _big_ an idiot, I hurt you so deeply, you broke up with me. And I've been miserable ever since.

"I know now how much you cared for me. I know that you loved me as no one else ever has. And I have been kicking myself for not telling you I loved you in return.

"I do love you, Camille. You made me so happy when we were together that I couldn't imagine life without you. And then I had to _live_ life without you. It has sucked beyond belief.

"I am so very, very ashamed and sorry that I never had the guts to tell you I loved you in person. If we see each other, I will do just that, I promise.

"And I need you to know how sorry I am that you had to endure the pain that went with our breakup. If I could undo it, or at least take all the pain away from you, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I wish it had never happened. If I can talk to you face to face, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I will grovel like you've never seen. Really, I think you'll be impressed.

"But if you're reading this, you already know that I can't grovel, or talk to you, or take your pain away. Not any more. And I've hurt you again, in just the way that you tried to warn me about at the start.

"I will hate not being able to see you again. I will hate not having the chance to make a life with you. And I will hate myself for putting you through the pain of my death, even though part of me worries you won't care. I guess if you don't, you'll never see this letter so I shouldn't even bring that up, but I don't want to scratch this out and I don't have time to write it over on a new sheet. Sorry for woolgathering.

"Camille, the bottom line is, I love you. I always have, and I always will. Through all the slaps and craziness and drama, you've been there for me. I wanted to be there for you. But now I can't. I'm so, so sorry.

"You said you wouldn't mourn me if I died. I don't know if you meant it. I like to think you didn't, but even if you did, I meant everything I've said here.

"If you do feel sad, let me tell you the same thing I told Kendall, James and Carlos: please don't cry for me. You know how much I hate to see you in pain. Mourn if you have to, but not too long. Live a happy, long life. You deserve nothing less. I just wish I could share it with you.

"All my love,

"Logan."

Camille's eyes had teared up so heavily that she could barely read the last few paragraphs, but she managed not to break down until she was done. The swirl of anger, fear, sorrow and, lately, guilt had kept her from hearing his soft tones in her thoughts for months. No longer. It was as if he had been standing over her shoulder, reading the letter aloud to her. It broke her heart, but it also gave her a curious comfort. She wished he could have made a video, but she'd treasure his letter just the same.

As she laid the pages on the table Carlos came over to hug her again. She gratefully accepted the embrace, then noticed another hand on her shoulder: James had moved in as well. She clutched at them both, a flood of emotion overwhelming her senses. Later she would understand that this had been the moment she finally became free of all the unspoken words that had smothered her ever since her fight with Logan. The immense weight on her spirit had fallen away.

Logan had told her everything that was in his heart, and had forgiven her for what he had known was in hers. It was tragic that she hadn't told him what else was in her heart: how sorry she was for pushing him over the edge, and above all how much she still loved him. And yet, somehow, he _had_ known everything she didn't say. The Camille who had said and done the things she wanted to disavow wasn't the Camille he had written to in the letter. She wasn't the Camille Logan had (finally!) loved.

Most importantly, _Camille_ wasn't that person any more.

Now all that remained was the genuine tragedy, the one that no words could make right: Logan was gone, forever. They had reconciled, but that was the last thing they could ever do together.

Thus she wept, and sought comfort from James and Carlos. But this was unlike the weeping she had done over the past month, born of guilt and shame and anger. All the self-loathing had been washed away. Rather than endlessly berating herself for past mistakes and lost opportunities, now she well and truly started _mourning Logan_. That grief might last for a while, but it wouldn't drag her life down. After two years of merely existing, she could start honoring his last request by _living_ again.

* * *

**A/N**: First off, Logan's my fav'rit and it hurt, a _lot_, that Jistone _killed_ him. That said, this whole story exists _because_ of Logan's passing, and I actually kind of enjoyed putting Camille (and in the background, James and Carlos) through the grinder, so ... you decide whether I should feel good or bad about Logan's fate. I can't draw the moral: I'm too conflicted.

Did Logan's letter seem awkwardly written? If so, good — I guess. I deliberately tried not to polish it too much. I'm not too happy with it but I keep telling myself that's what happens when you write hastily and don't edit, which is exactly what Logan did in my mind. If he seems to be spreading it a little thick, as they say, well, remember what a very deep hole he dug for himself two years before, and consider how badly he wants to reconcile with Camille.

What happened afterwards? Eventually the three ended their hug (which got tearful for all of them, by the way), they ordered a pizza and got more of their toxic pent-up feelings out into the open, then resolved to tackle Kendall together the next day. That would have been worth a story, as would the dinner conversation between Kendall, Katie and Mrs. Knight, _except_ that "The Hole in My Heart" already got into Kendall's head, and Kendall essentially defused both sets of interventions by telling them that story.

In other words, I could have stretched this tale a little further (I have some James-centric material I tried to work into a companion story, for instance), but I think I've said everything I have to say around "His Sacrifice" and it's time to let this little milieu, like Logan, rest in peace. Thanks for reading.


End file.
